Nitpicking some more...
Adobe - $200 upgrade versus $700 new (PS Standard). With an 18 month renewal cycle that works out to $133 per year or 19% per year (133/700).
QU - $20 yearly subscription versus $90 new. That works out to 22% per year (20/90).
I think I have those numbers right.
It's all a matter of perspective and the value you assign to things. It takes Adobe a year and a half to release a "major" upgrade with 3,900 employees while I can make more significant improvements in my own software in one year. Fact is, a major upgrade is a major upgrade. Adobe charges you $200/$700 or 29% for major upgrades. I charge $20/$90 or 22%. I can't help that I work faster than they do nor the fact that I can offer you MUCH more value for your money! It took them 18 months to release CS5 for which their flagship feature, content aware, works in only a small number of hand picked cases. They want you to buy it though, so they stop supporting camera raw in CS4 so that if you buy a new camera, you'll be forced to buy CS5 to be able to use raw with that camera even though it isn't much of an upgrade from CS4.
Let's face it, regardless of my methods, there will always be a few people in a crowd of a thousand who will complain. One person may complain because they assign a different value to different features or different upgrade plans than most. Another may complain because they assumed that "free upgrades" meant that development on that particular program was open ended and unlimited and I would never come out with new software with similar functionality. And at the far end of the spectrum, some might complain just because they have a very warped view of the word "value". That's just the nature of business. In the mean time, Lite, Pro, and Studio are still supported and upgraded. I think most people are smart enough to determine whether they need the
new work I'm doing in Ultimate and whether it is worth the price to them. To decide, it only requires balancing your budget with your needs. Isn't that how we all decide whether or not to buy a new model of anything?
So at this point, I think every avenue has already been covered on this topic.
Mike